Such a vehicle body is known for example from EP 1 840 004 A1. This patent application discloses a vehicle body front-part structure, whose frame is partly constituted by a pair of front side members, which are arranged on both sides in the vehicle width direction forming a front part of a passenger compartment of the vehicle. The said front part comprises at least three longitudinal members at the left-hand side as well as at the right-hand side, wherein the direction of extension of one of the longitudinal members extends angularly to the direction of extension of one of the other longitudinal members in horizontal projection.
A similar front part of a vehicle body comprising at least three longitudinal members at the left-hand side as well as at the right-hand side of the front part is also known from US 2002/0008408 A1.
Furthermore, DE 100 23 112 A1 discloses the front region of a motor vehicle with combustion engine, in which apart from the conventional left-hand and right-hand longitudinal members at least one further longitudinally extending first longitudinal member is provided, which is arranged in a plane offset to the plane of the other longitudinal member. Through the additional longitudinal member, a further load path is provided, so that in the event of a frontal impact the impact force can be distributed over a plurality of load paths and thus the individual components can be dimensioned smaller. In this way the weight of the vehicle body can be reduced.
The specifications for the resistance of a vehicle body to a frontal impact arise for example from the European New Car Assessment Program EuroNCAP. In addition, however, there is a need for vehicle bodies, which not only satisfy the requirements of EuroNCAP, but which in other impact scenarios also have a good resistance. At the same time the weight of the vehicle body should be as low as possible.
Against this background, the present invention has the object of providing a vehicle body with improved resistance to an oblique frontal impact but with a low overall weight.